The art of caricature relies on the relationship between the recognizable and the strange, offering commentary on socio-political issues and capturing commonly held societal views through exaggeration and theatrics. Features such as the nose, eyes, head shape, body shape, and height are distorted by the artist to various ends from the comic to the cruel. Cruikshank and other caricaturists played with proportion to capture the differing degrees of lived experience within a stratified Britain. By shunning a refined visual style in terms of traditionally accepted artistic conventions, caricaturists like Cruikshank found a wider audience; readers and viewers from all walks of life could engage with satire, critique, and politics even if they were alienated from participation.
Cruikshank’s political views are not always evident in the distorted, misshapen bodies he etched, but these sketches were often accompanied by subversive puns that commented on the current status and goings-on of nineteenth-century British society.
The etchings and engravings in this collection can be humorous but also harmful. In “Comic & Grotesque,” you will encounter Cruikshank’s imaginative experimentation with bodily extremes. In “Racial & Ethnic Stereotypes,” you will find the offensive ways that Cruikshank rendered non-European people and both created and reflected white supremacist visual culture.
Content Warning: Please note that the items in this collection may contain imagery, language, and ideas that are offensive, derogatory, and/or harmful. The items were scanned directly from the original materials and some contain imagery and language that is euphemistic, racist, homophobic, sexist, ableist or that otherwise demeans the humanity of people.
Click on the images below to learn more about each collection
Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery